Obsessed(44)

"Are you angry with me?" I stand in front of the desk, my hands nervously fidgeting with the leather strap of my purse.

"Angry?" He finally makes eye contact with me. "Why would you ask that?"

"You changed in the car." I search for the right words before continuing, "I know you don't like Mark and what he did to me."

"You're right." He flips through the messages on his desk before opening his drawer to remove a pad of paper and a pen. "He's an asshole who hurt you. I can't stand him."

I move to sit on the couch and take a deep breath. "I don't really like talking about him."

"We need to." He pushes his suit jacket off before moving to sit next to me. He brings the pen and pad of paper with him.

"Are you taking notes?" I try to lighten the mood but his expression doesn’t change.

"Perhaps." He studies my face before he speaks again. "Tell me about your ties with Mark."

"Okay." I place my purse on my lap and adjust my necklace. I take a deep breath and look directly at him. He's looking past me to a bookcase in the corner. I've come to recognize his aloofness as a tactic he uses when coping with uncomfortable situations.

"Mark and you?" he prompts me again.

"When Mark cheated and we separated we didn't involve any lawyers." I spit it out.

"That was unwise." The pen in his hand gets to work jotting something down on the paper.

"I'm sure it was." I try not to feel offended by how impersonal he's acting. "Mark offered to give me something to help I guess or maybe to quiet me, I'm not sure."

"Quiet you?" his eyes jump from the paper to my face. "In what way?"

"We were always on the society page for being at this party or that party. The Post ran a story on our impending wedding. When news broke that we weren't together, the media was asking a lot of questions."

"So he bought your silence?" He shifts his body away from me.

I shake my head from side-to-side. "I didn’t want to speak to anyone about what happened. I was so humiliated by it." I glance past him to the window and the bright sunshine showering his desk. "I just wanted to crawl into a hole."

"What did he offer you?" His brow shoots up in anticipation.

"Shares. I own part of his company," I say regretfully. "He insisted I take them. I don't have any part of the day-to-day operations. Mark has my proxy."

He only nods his head slowly up and down. "You mean shares in his real estate company. What's the name of that again?"

"Intersect Investments."

He writes more before he looks at me. "How much do you own?"

"Ten percent." I feel like I'm being interviewed for a loan. The impersonal nature of our conversation is wearing.

"Mark owns the rest or are there other partners?" his business tone continues as he furiously takes notes.

"There was another partner. He was an older man. I only met him once. His name was Tom." I pause, searching my memory for his last name. "Tom something. He died though and I'm not sure what happened with his shares. Mark talked about buying his estate out but then things between us fell apart and I have no idea where that went."

He nods in silence before standing to toss the notepad onto his desk. "You're a very wealthy woman, Ivy." Finally a smile brightens his face again. "Or you're going to be."

I arch my eyebrow in question. "How so?"

"If you sell those shares to me, you'll be able to buy the apartment in Chelsea and live comfortably on the rest of the proceeds for a very long time."

"I don't know how much they're worth." I stand to pace the floor. "Mark never told me and I never asked. I've forgotten about them for the most part."

"I'll have my business advisors research it but I'd say off the cuff, your ten percent is worth more than ten million." The way the number rolls off his lips so nonchalantly is unsettling.

"Ten million? As in dollars?" I know my mouth is half agape and I don't care. I shake my head certain that I misheard that number.

"At least." He reaches to punch a number into his desk phone. "Probably more. I promise I'll offer you a more than fair price."

I stand in silence as I listen to him order someone named Gilbert to his office for a meeting immediately. I reach for my bag and fumble through it again searching for my phone.

"I have to go, Gilbert. Get here as soon as possible." The phone clicks back into its base as I thumb through my phone's address book.

"Ivy, what are you doing?" He's behind me now, peering over my shoulder.

"I need to tell Mark if I'm selling my shares, no?" I ask excitedly.